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Once-Shrinking Greenland Glacier Is Now Growing, NASA Study Shows (nbcnews.com)

kenh shares a report from NBC News: A major Greenland glacier that was one of the fastest shrinking ice and snow masses on Earth is growing again, a new NASA study finds. The Jakobshavn (YA-cob-shawv-en) glacier around 2012 was retreating about 1.8 miles (3 kilometers) and thinning nearly 130 feet (almost 40 meters) annually. But it started growing again at about the same rate in the past two years, according to a study in Monday's Nature Geoscience. Study authors and outside scientists think this is temporary.

A natural cyclical cooling of North Atlantic waters likely caused the glacier to reverse course, said study lead author Ala Khazendar, a NASA glaciologist on the Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) project. Khazendar and colleagues say this coincides with a flip of the North Atlantic Oscillation -- a natural and temporary cooling and warming of parts of the ocean that is like a distant cousin to El Nino in the Pacific. The water in Disko Bay, where Jakobshavn hits the ocean, is about 3.6 degrees cooler than a few years ago, study authors said. While this is "good news" on a temporary basis, this is bad news on the long term because it tells scientists that ocean temperature is a bigger player in glacier retreats and advances than previously thought, said NASA climate scientist Josh Willis, a study co-author. Over the decades the water has been and will be warming from man-made climate change, he said, noting that about 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases goes into the oceans.

5 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Unbelievable by Freischutz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I takes more faith to believe in Climate Change theories than to believe in God.

    No it doesn't. I can measure climate change, I can observe it and I can feel it's impact on my surroundings. God is an imaginary being that only your clergy can communicate with and whose existence cannot be documented. This invisible being that only the clergy can communicate with tells them how it wants you to behave and that it will smite you and cast you into a place of eternal torture called hell whose existence cannot be documented either. Give me climate science over your imaginary friend any day.

  2. Re:Still waiting... by Sique · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I can see the global warming right out of my window. I live in the mountains, and I can see the skiing resorts. The one that got built in the 1800s, the one from the early 1900s, the one from the 1950ies, 1980ies and of now. I wonder why all new structures have moved higher up.

    I can also see the terminal moraine left by the glaciers in the 1800s, in the early 1900s, the ones from the 1950ies, 1980ies, and where the glacier ends now. I wonder why they likewise move higher up.

    And I can see the postcards with pictures from the same spot in the 1800s, in the early 1900s, the ones from the 1950ies, 1980ies, and where the snow line ends now. I wonder why it moved higher up too.

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    .sig: Sique *sigh*
  3. Re:Still waiting... by nonBORG · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is local temperature change you are looking at and then claiming it is global warming, and if it were the other way (everything was getting colder locally) you would ignore it and say that it is globally that matters.

    That is not to say there is not global climate change, there is, but there is also a lot of claims of stuff being related which is not (that is not to even say your local situation is not.)

    But more to the point when you see a glacier going the wrong way for your theory or whatever you find a way to write it off and then quote the movement of a few buildings locally as proof positive the other way than the evidence in the article? Few people argue about global warming but they do discuss how big a deal it is and if it is caused by man. Also as with your local example of local climate change people adapt to changes.

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    You can't handle the truth! - Because I don't post left all my comments get modded down, bye bye Karma.
  4. Re:Still waiting... by Freischutz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is local temperature change you are looking at and then claiming it is global warming, and if it were the other way (everything was getting colder locally) you would ignore it and say that it is globally that matters. That is not to say there is not global climate change, there is, but there is also a lot of claims of stuff being related which is not (that is not to even say your local situation is not.) But more to the point when you see a glacier going the wrong way for your theory or whatever you find a way to write it off and then quote the movement of a few buildings locally as proof positive the other way than the evidence in the article? Few people argue about global warming but they do discuss how big a deal it is and if it is caused by man. Also as with your local example of local climate change people adapt to changes.

    The changes I'm seeing all over the N-Atlantic tell me that this is more than a 'local climate change', science confirms this and we have examples of what happened earlier in the earth's history when this much carbon dioxide was de-sequestered into the atmosphere. Long story short, it wasn't pretty. Given the choice between believing thousands of scientists saying the climate is changing and a few useful idiots shilling for the fossil fuel industry who say it isn't, I'm going to pick the scientists.

  5. Re:Unbelievable by Nidi62 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, but Christianity has the dangerous narrative built in that you can basically crap on the world because it's YOURS and when you're done with it, the end of the world is coming anyway and you go to a blissful place.

    Basically it's suicide terrorism on a global scale.

    See, that doesn't make sense to me. If, as the Bible says, God both created the Earth and made man in his own image to be the stewards of his creation, then by letting the world basically go to hell we aren't being very good stewards are we? We've basically failed in our reason for existence. If God tossed Adam and Eve of Eden for simply eating an apple, imagine what he would have done if they had burned the whole place down. And, since the only heaven or hell we can absolutely 100% prove exists is right here on Earth, only seems to make sense to try and make it heaven, not hell.

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    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil